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Description

The purpose of this book is to showcase a range of approaches that consider learning and collaboration as central processes in agriculture and natural resources governance and management. These include four related and overlapping adaptive collaborative approaches – Adaptive Collaborative Management, Participatory Action Research, Social Learning and Innovation Systems. Despite these being generated in different institutional domains with somewhat diverse epistemological and policy orientations, the authors show that there are common themes among these approaches.

The book presents a review of various adaptive and collaborative approaches to management developed to cope with the social and biophysical complexity of natural resource systems, including case studies from Bangladesh, Ecuador, Nepal and Zimbabwe. The contexts range from farmer field schools, to floodplain management and community forestry. The authors provide rich accounts of how adaptive collaborative approaches were applied to synergise different types of learning, foster collaboration among stakeholders, and nurture innovative development processes. Through its introduction and conclusion chapters, the book establishes a clear theoretical approach and identifies a set of practical methodologies for combining different systems of knowledge in a way that generates and maximizes innovation and the translation of research into practice.

Reviews

"This impressive collection of articles is about how to enter the intimate improvisational space of everyday practice in ways that can reflexively bring together research with action. Reaffirming the activist potential of grounded field research, it is recommended reading for anyone wishing to be informed and transformative at the same moment." –Dr. Jesse Ribot, Associate Professor of Geography and Affiliate, Beckman Insitute, University of Illinois

"…there is much material of real interest here … Carol Colfer’s contribution is a reassuringly frank and personal reflection on the issues underlying conflicts and collaborations between social and natural scientists within an international research institute." – Helen Schneider, Oryx

"This book should serve to provide valuable insights to ACA practitioners…The great strength of these studies is in their sincerity. The authors appear to aim for critical appraisal and improvement rather than with self-promotion or with overtly selling ACA approaches. They demonstrate a commitment to ACA principles of learning from practice and of honest self-reflection." Danielle Spruyt, Lecturer, Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales, Australia in the African Review of Economics and Finance